Not Alone
by clp66
Summary: This story is about a new character who comes to PPTH as a bit of a puzzle for Dr. House to solve. The timing of this story is sometime during the early part of season seven, so Huddy is present, but it is in the background.
1. Chapter 1

Not Alone

By clp66

Chapter One: Road Trip

It took her three days traveling to get there with over 24 hours on the road. She could have flown, but she hadn't seen this section of the country in many years and was enjoying the scenery. The first day, she had driven just over 12 hours, stopping only for bathroom breaks, meals and finally a hotel in Indianapolis. That night, she tried to rest, but she couldn't sleep. Her mind kept going over the past year and what the future might hold for her – finally, she fell into a fitful sleep around 2:00 am.

The next morning she woke at 7:00, "Was it seven?" she thought. Had she crossed into the Eastern Time Zone yet? She looked at her watch, then her cell phone and realized that it was really 8:00; she couldn't remember when she crossed into the Eastern Time Zone. "Well, at least I'm in the right time zone" she said to herself as she adjusted her watch. As she got herself up and ready for another full day of driving, she contemplated the next couple of days ahead. Would she have opportunity to meet him? Would he recognize her? It had been nearly 40 years since they had seen each other. She put these thoughts aside as she got ready for the day. After having finished eating the complementary breakfast offered by the hotel, she loaded her jeep with her bags and continued her journey.

She drove as long as she was physically able on just 5 hours of sleep. She found an inexpensive hotel in Harrisburg and this time she was tired enough to fall asleep right away. The next morning she arose at 5am and took her time getting ready. Today she would fix her hair and put on her make-up, but she decided to wear her traveling clothes until she reached her destination. Another 4 hours and she would be at Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Her interview with, she looked at her paperwork again, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, was just after lunch at 1:00pm. She left the hotel at 7am so that she would have plenty of time to find the hospital once she got into town. She didn't want to be late for her interview.

As she drove, she allowed herself to think over the last year of her life. Her father passed away nearly a year ago. Her mom had died several years prior and the loss of her dad was still weighing heavily on her, especially considering the things he had told her on his deathbed. Her husband and her daughter were supportive of her while she took care of her father during his illness, but his death brought little relief as very shortly afterwards her husband suffered a sudden heart attack from which he never really recovered. He passed away last winter and then this past May, her daughter graduated from high school. When her daughter left home for the University, she was alone for the first time in over twenty years. "Well, not really." she thought. She always had people she cared about and people that cared for her, but even with those around her, she always felt alone. She loved her husband very much and she missed him dearly, but he never really understood her. Her Dad was the closest person to ever understand her, but he was troubled and kept to himself, pushing her away as he did so. Only on his deathbed did he open up to her and then finally he was at peace. She pushed these thoughts aside as she drove into Princeton, NJ. Better start concentrating on her upcoming interview.

She pulled into the hospital parking lot. She still had two hours before her interview, so she decided to go inside to the cafeteria for a drink and a light lunch. She bought a salad and a diet soda and found a seat in the back of the cafeteria. As she started eating her salad, she saw him. There was no way it could be anybody else. He was tall and thin, he had a square jaw, brown hair and sharp piercing blue eyes. As he stood in line with another doctor, she saw that he used a cane, which she wasn't expecting. Her heart started racing and she had to force herself not to stare. She looked down and finished her salad.

It was time to get ready. She got up to leave the cafeteria and as she passed the table where he sat, she caught his eye. He stopped chewing for a minute as he watched her pass. She heard his friend ask him what was wrong as she walked out the door. She went to her car and got her clothes for the interview. A charcoal pinstriped business suit with a purple shirt and heals. She hated wearing heals, but with this outfit they were a necessity. She was short and at 5'2" it was hard to find pants that fit properly. The heels would add enough height to keep the pants from dragging the floor. She found a bathroom and changed. She looked at herself in the mirror and decided that her hair and make-up still looked presentable. She took her traveling clothes back out to her car, picked up her folder with her extra copies of her resume, the copy of the position announcement she had downloaded from the hospital website and a printout of the application she had made. She still had 30 minutes before the interview. She found her way to Dr. Cuddy's assistant and introduced herself. She was directed to wait in the clinic area until Dr. Cuddy returned from her meeting.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: The Interview

Dr. Cuddy walked in her office, spoke with her assistant for a moment and then came over. "Hello," she said, "I'm Dr. Lisa Cuddy". As she rose to shake Dr. Cuddy's hand, she said, "Nice to meet you, I'm Susan Watkins". Dr. Cuddy led Susan into her office and offered her a seat on the sofa and sat next to her. She started the interview by telling Susan that the position she had applied for had been posted for months with no response and so she was surprised when she received Susan's application and resume.

"Well," Susan said, "there aren't many lab technicians out there with both the years experience in research _and_ clinical laboratory experience that the position required and I've only recently started looking for a new position. If I may ask, why are you looking for a lab technician with both research and clinical experience? Hospital laboratories generally only want Certified MT's and not people with my experience", she continued.

Dr. Cuddy hesitated for a moment before she answered. "The position is new and belongs to a unique department here at Princeton Plainsboro called the Diagnostics Department. This department specializes in diagnosing the most difficult patient cases that have generally have been referred several times. As a result, in order to diagnose these patients, often very specialized laboratory testing has to be performed. We have often had to send out to research labs for these tests and the board decided that it would be more cost efficient to bring a specialized laboratory in-house specifically for this department." Dr. Cuddy hesitated again before continuing, "Also, the doctor in charge of the department can be very cantankerous and most of the lab techs in the main lab do everything they can to avoid running even the most basic of his testing requests."

"I see," Susan replied introspectively, why did that comment not surprise her? After a short pause, Susan said, "I'm sure you've looked over my resume, do you have any questions for me?" Dr. Cuddy looked over Susan's resume again. She asked a few basic questions to assess Susan's knowledge which she answered correctly. Susan was remarkably qualified for this position, she had a Master's degree in clinical chemistry, was ASCP certified in Histotechnology and Phlebotomy and had 20 years of combined research and clinical laboratory experience. She had experience with a wide variety of laboratory techniques that would be valuable for the diagnostics department. She wasn't the typical young hot doctor that Dr. House would normally hire for his team, but this position hadn't been created by him. It was created by the Board and they had required that she do the hiring and not to tell Dr. House about it until the position was filled and the candidate already working for the hospital. She hated keeping things from him, so she was determined to hire the best person for him and Susan seemed like a good fit for the team. Dr. Cuddy's only concern was whether or not she would be able to handle working for Dr. House and how well he would handle being forced to take on an employee he didn't want. As a final question, she asked Susan if she had every worked directly for a physician before, and of course she had. She also had several years experience working in a Pathology lab. Pathologists are known for their terrible personal disposition – which was probably why they were Pathologists. Susan explained that it's hard to be rude to someone when they are deceased or when it's just a piece of stained tissue on microscope glass. Nodding at that, Dr. Cuddy closed the file, looked at Susan and asked "When can you start?"

That evening Cuddy and House were sitting next to each other on her sofa watching television. Rachel was playing quietly on the floor with her toys. House put his arm over Cuddy's shoulders as she settled in close to him. She watched Rachel playing on the floor while House watched a nature documentary on the television.

After a few moments, House spoke, "Something's bothering you."

"It's just a personnel issue at work that I'm dealing with, it'll be fine." Cuddy responded.

House knew that it was something that concerned him or she would be talking about it, but he didn't say anything more. He knew she would talk to him when she felt more comfortable. He gently kissed her on her forehead as she pressed in closer. Another 30 minutes and it was time to put Rachel to bed.

After Rachel was settled, they went to Cuddy's bedroom. House could feel her emotional distance. He decided not to initiate anything tonight and let her rest. Whatever it was, it was really bothering her. He watched her as she fell asleep in his arms. He gently removed his arm from around her and quietly got up and went to his own apartment.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The First Day

Susan had asked for a start day of two weeks following her interview. She needed time to find an apartment and move her belongings from the Texas panhandle to New Jersey. She called her daughter and told her about her new job and where it was. Laura was sad to see mom sell the home and move, but she understood her mother's need for a change of scenery. The last year had been difficult and with her away to college, living in that house alone must be difficult. New Jersey was pretty far from home, but Laura knew it was for the best. Mom was actually closer to her at the University and she would easily be able to visit during the Thanksgiving break.

Monday morning found Susan entering Princeton Plainsboro. She headed straight to Dr. Cuddy's office as she had been instructed. As she was preparing to walk in, _he_ was walking out. She watched him as he walked, leaning heavily on his cane, through the clinic area to the elevators. She opened the door to Dr. Cuddy's office who seemed a little surprised. "You're early," she said. Susan replied that she didn't want to make her first impression a bad one by being late on the first day. Dr. Cuddy smiled and took her to her new laboratory. It wasn't much of a laboratory, at least not yet. It was fairly small as laboratories go. It had two sinks, one for hand washing near the door and another in the cabinetry. There were cabinets along one wall with a fume hood and a biological cabinet and scattered in no particular order in the room was a lab table, desktop computer, an old chemistry analyzer, a water purification system, a flow cytometer, an automated microscan for bacteria identification and a few other smaller pieces of equipment one would expect to find in a laboratory.

Susan was instructed to arrange the laboratory however she wished and as she discovered items that she needed, to let Dr. Cuddy know and she would arrange for purchasing to obtain the items for her. After she was finished putting her lab together, then she and Dr. Cuddy would go visit the diagnostic department head together. Did she think she could have the laboratory put together by the end of the week? Susan thought that she would have most of it together, but it depended on what kind of maintenance the chemistry analyzer needed. She had worked with this particular model before and knew it to be a work horse, but it was also cantankerous when left to sit. It was obvious that this one had sat unused for a very long time. As Dr. Cuddy started to leave, Susan spoke. "Dr. Cuddy, would it be possible for me to get a sampling of the case files for Dr. House's patients over the last three years? I'd like to be able to look through them so I can get a general idea of the testing that he orders. I'd like to be prepared for most of the tests he wants."

"How did you know it would be Dr. House that you were working for?" Dr. Cuddy asked.

"Well, it's not rocket science. Both your website and the directory in the hall indicate that Dr. Gregory House is the department head of Diagnostics. And while there is no photo posted on the website, your reaction when I walked in your office told me that the man with the cane was him." Of course Susan didn't tell Dr. Cuddy that she had already figured out who Dr. House was prior to her interview. Just looking at him, it was obvious to her. Dr. Cuddy's reaction simply confirmed her theory.

Dr. Cuddy smiled, "You and Dr. House are going to get along fine."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Introductions

A week later and Susan had the lab mostly together. As predicted, she was having issues getting the chemistry analyzer up and running smoothly. She had called the manufacturer and had gotten a listing of all the parts she would need to refurbish the instrument. It's too bad the board hadn't approved purchasing a new instrument or even a maintenance agreement for this one. It would have been a lot easier to let somebody else handle the repairs, but Susan could handle it. She had worked with this instrument model long enough that she knew it well and was confident she could get it up and running. Once she worked through the last two issues, she would begin the calibration process and start validating the instrument with results with specimens from the main laboratory.

Dr. Cuddy came into the laboratory. "Are you ready to meet Dr. House?" she asked. Susan, who was installing a new sample probe on the analyzer, turned around and said that she was. She removed her lab coat, washed her hands and they walked down the hall and up the elevator to the 5th floor where Dr. House's office was located. On the way to his office, Dr. Cuddy was called away to take care of an emergency situation. Susan was left standing alone in the hallway. Dr. House's office was just down the hall. She contemplated for a moment and then headed toward his office. He was inside.

She knocked on his door and opened it. He was reading something and he looked over his reading glasses at her. "Dr. House?" she said. He just stared at her. She entered the office and introduced herself. "I've seen you around," he replied. "What do you want?" Susan took a deep breath and said, "I'm your new lab tech." Dr. House didn't say a word. He got up, grabbed his cane and walked out the door. As Susan watched him leave, she thought to herself, "Well, that didn't go too badly – I guess." She left his office and went back to her lab and the cantankerous chemistry analyzer.

Dr. House went straight to Dr. Cuddy's office. He found her in a heated discussion with the Lab Director who was complaining about the bashing his techs had gotten this morning from a certain doctor. He was losing his techs in droves because of this doctor and he wanted it to stop right now. He was tired of having to train new techs every month because of the high turn-over rate. Dr. Cuddy assured him that she was taking care of the situation and that everything would be resolved very soon. As he got up to leave, he saw Dr. House and glared at him as he passed by.

"The next time you decide to hire an employee for me, you should see if I actually want one. I don't need a lab tech" said Dr. House.

"No, but you're getting one," she replied.

"I have four highly qualified doctors to do all my testing," he said.

"You have four highly qualified doctors that could be used more effectively in other areas and don't need to be wasting their time running lab tests. Besides, they don't do all your testing; the lab gets most of it. The Lab Director is tired of you running off his employees, and the Board has decided that it would be cheaper to give you your own tech than to keep hiring and training new techs for the main lab."

"This is what has been bothering you," Dr. House said.

"Yes, I was worried how you would react having an employee forced on you by the Board. Here is a copy of her resume; you might actually find it interesting reading"

"Don't get your hopes up. I'm sure she's just one more boring lab tech…," his voice trailed off as he started reading her bio and resume. Dr. House got a curious look on his face as he turned to leave Dr. Cuddy's office.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Clinic Duty

It didn't take long for Susan to learn of Dr. House's reputation. Every time she introduced herself to somebody as Dr. House's lab tech, they gave her a sympathetic look and wished her the best. "Surely he isn't all that bad," she thought. She walked back to the lab and as she entered, the phone rang. She picked up the phone and before she said anything a gruff voice asked where she was. "Seriously?" she retorted, "You called the lab." She instantly regretted the comment. She really needed to learn to hold her tongue. "Get up here, we've got a case" the voice said. "Great," she thought, "I've already pissed him off."

Susan entered Dr. House's office, but he wasn't there. She looked around and saw him in an adjacent room with four other people; three men and one young looking woman. She decided that these must be Dr. House's fellows that others around the hospital had spoken about and described to her. Dr. Chase, the good looking blond, was sitting to the left of Dr. House. Next to him was "Thirteen". "Who on earth names their kid, Thirteen?" she had asked one of the nurses. It was explained to her how she got her nickname and that her real name was Dr. Hadley. She preferred to go by "Thirteen" however.

Across from Thirteen, was Dr. Taub, the short one with a big nose, and next to him on Dr. House's right was Dr. Foreman who had been described as arrogant and condescending.

Dr. House motioned for her to sit down, so she sat at the end of the table while the fellows stared at her. Dr. House introduced her as "Our new lab rat." Susan sat and listened as the doctors discussed their new case.

"Could be environmental," Thirteen offered. Dr. House nodded and sent Thirteen and Dr. Taub away to break into the person's home to look for environmental causes. "Interesting," Susan thought. Dr. House rattled off several diagnostic tests and ordered Chase and Foreman to look for all the usual suspects.

As they got up to leave, Dr. House looked at Susan and said, "You come with me, we've got clinic duty."

Dr. House walked remarkably fast considering he was using a cane. Being at least a foot shorter than him, Susan practically had to trot to keep up with him. "Why am I going to clinic duty, Dr. House?" I'm not a physician, I'm just a "lab rat" remember?"

"If you're going to be my lab tech, you're going to run the lab tests on all my patients, not just my cases." Susan stopped and turned around. "Where are you going?" inquired Dr. House.

"I need my phlebotomy tray," she replied. "Leave it," he said, "they have everything you need down in the clinic."

Clinic duty was interesting. It was obvious that Dr. House was bored with the whole process. There were a lot of folks with stuffy noses, several needing their yearly check up for their job, a couple of urinary tract infections and a couple of extreme sunburns (there had been a sand castle contest at the local beach over the weekend). Dr. House treated each of them in turn, generally degrading them in the process. Sometimes, if the patient was very pretty, he was actually nice. Most of the time, he just plodded through patient after patient until his time was up.

Occasionally, the process was entertaining. She wasn't aware there were so many idiots and listening to Dr. House berate these people caused her to suppress a few smiles. There was the fraternity pledge that took a bet that he could shove 10 marbles up his nose and then wondered why he couldn't breathe, the teenage girl who thought she got pregnant because she sat on a public toilet seat, the mother who brought her son in because he got a light bruise on his leg after he fell off of a swing and the kid who shot himself in the leg with a BB gun just to see if it would hurt. Through it all, Susan didn't say a thing. She performed several blood draws, collected urine specimens from the patients when necessary and when Dr. House's four hours were finished, she collected together all her specimens and went to the lab to start testing.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Lab Work

Susan was working on her clinic specimens of the day when Thirteen and Dr. Taub came into the lab lugging a large black garbage bag. They left the bag on the floor and exited the laboratory. Susan peered into the bag and saw specimen bag after specimen bag of mostly trash, discarded food items, toiletries, personal hygiene items etc. She poked her head out the door and hollered to the doctors, "Hey! What am I supposed to do with this?"

Dr. Taub didn't even turn around and said, "Test it."

"Any idea what I'm looking for?" Susan asked.

"Nope," was the reply. She heard them laughing as they got into the elevator, "Jerks", she said quietly. Susan went over to her desk and grabbed her copy of the case report. She sat down to go through it and see if she could determine the most likely candidate for the patient's symptoms. "This was hardly fair," she thought, "I'm a 'lab rat', not a diagnostician."

The patient had a fever. Thinking of not only her past experience in the lab, but mostly as a mother, most environmental causes for illness were bacterial, fungal, viral and allergens. She supposed she needed to look for toxins as well. Since the patient was running a fever, she decided to start with bacterial, fungal and viral. She left allergens and toxins for last. Sighing, she looked at the bag of trash; it was going to be a long night.

The next morning, she was finally finished plating all the specimens to look for bacterial growth. She knew that every plate was going to have some bacteria growing by the afternoon, which meant she would spend all evening identifying the various bacteria. By the time she identified those, she should start seeing colonies of the slower growing bacteria and fungi. She was tired, but she gathered her things and headed off to differential.

The fellows were all gathered around the table and looked up at Susan as she entered the room. She was tired and it showed. Drs. Hadley and Taub had smug looks on their faces as she sat down. "Well, what do we know, Susan?" Dr. House asked. "The patient lives in a pig sty," Susan replied. Acknowledging the look from Dr. House she said, "I don't know yet, I've plated every specimen for bacterial growth and have started testing for the most uncommon viruses I can test for, but it'll be about 4 hours before I start seeing results."

Thirteen asked, "Why haven't you checked for allergens yet?"

"Because," Susan replied, "Allergies don't cause fevers."

Dr. Taub asked, "Why are you just testing for the most uncommon viruses?"

Susan just looked at him and said, "Really? I thought you guys chased Zebras. In order to cut down on the amount of work you were so obviously excited to unload on me last night, I decided that if it was a common virus, "common doctors" would have figured it out already. So, I'm just testing for the uncommon."

Dr. House looked at Susan with a slight smile and issued another series of diagnostic tests and scans for the fellows and started to his office. "Do we have clinic today?" Susan asked. "No clinic, go find a couch and get a couple hours of sleep, while you wait for results" he replied.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Differential

The next morning Susan was able to provide a list of the various bacterial and viral contaminates from the specimens Thirteen and Taub had brought to her. All of them were ruled out for one reason or another. She had not been able to find evidence of any toxins from the material either. Dr. Taub didn't seem impressed by her contributions, but she ignored his inference. She stared at the chemistry report in front of her. She knew what it said because it was her report and knew the doctors should be seeing something. While the doctors were contemplating several options for what was ailing their patient, Dr. House noted the expression on her face. "Spit it out Susan," he said

"Does the low potassium level mean anything?" Susan asked.

Dr. Chase replied, "The potassium level is normal."

"It shouldn't be," said Susan.

"Why?" asked Dr. Taub.

Dr. Foreman saw what Susan was referring to, "The specimen was grossly hemolyzed. The potassium levels should be high, but they're not. That means the patient has low potassium levels"

Dr. House said, "Good catch, but unfortunately it's not related. The potassium imbalance is due to the nausea the patient is experiencing. Thirteen, go hang a banana bag to get her electrolytes back in balance."

As Thirteen left the room, Dr. House continued. "The potassium may not mean anything, but we do have another symptom, hemolysis."

"Not necessarily," offered Susan. "There are several causes of hemolysis other than symptomatic ones. You need to rule out technique issues. Who pulled the blood?"

"Thirteen," offered Dr. Chase. "She said the patient was a hard stick."

"Then it's possible that the hemolysis is caused from technique," Susan said. Dr. Taub looked at Susan with disdain, it was obvious that he didn't appreciate Susan's presence, though Susan wasn't sure why. "I'm not saying she's a bad stick," Susan continued, "I'm saying that if the patient was a hard stick, then it's possible that the tourniquet was left on too long while she was trying to find a vein, or she had to use a very small gauge butterfly needle. If that's the case, then the hemolysis may not actually be a symptom. The specimen needs to be re-drawn."

Dr. House nodded, "Susan, go collect a fresh specimen from the patient and re-run the chemistries."

As Susan got up to retrieve her phlebotomy tray from the lab, Dr. House assigned more diagnostic tests for the rest of the team. When Susan arrived in the patient's room, Dr. House was standing just inside the room. "Why are you here?" Susan asked.

"I'm here to watch." He replied.

"You've watched me pull blood several times in the clinic. Why do you need to watch this one?" She asked.

"Just do your job." He said.

Susan, went over to the patient. She introduced herself and told her that her doctors had ordered more tests and that she needed to pull more blood. The patient said, "I hope you're better at it than that doctor, she had to stick me three times before she was able to get any blood."

"Well," said Susan, "you've been dehydrated from all the nausea and sometimes that makes it difficult." Susan continued, "I'm going to take my time looking for a good vein before we try any sticking, OK?" The patient nodded, and Susan started looking for a vein. Susan went to the arm opposite of the IV, and looked around the inside of the patient's arm. She saw several bruises where Dr. Hadley had stuck her arm and missed the vein. She didn't want to make those any worse, but it's always better to take from the arm than the hand if you can. She got out a butterfly, syringe and the vacutainer she needed for the draw. She put on her gloves, cleaned the area inside of the elbow with alcohol and put the tourniquet on the arm of the patient. She put the butterfly in her right hand positioned for the draw as she started feeling for a vein with her left hand. As she felt the vein under the skin, her eyes went wide with surprise. She was expecting not to feel much of anything, or if she did that it was a rolling vein, but instead she felt a large easy vein. She glanced over toward Dr. House as she put her butterfly down and reached for a larger gauge vacutainer needle instead. She didn't want to make it obvious, but it was better to draw with a large gauge needle whenever possible in order to minimize damaging the red blood cells in the specimen. When she finished the draw the patient said, "That was much better than last time, I hardly felt it." Susan smiled at the patient as she gathered the specimen and her things.

Dr. House watched the entire process. Susan had no issues pulling the patient's blood. He knew she was a good stick, but he also knew that Thirteen was a good stick. Artificial hemolysis shouldn't even have been an issue to rule out. As he watched her draw the blood, he once again couldn't get over the feeling that there was something familiar about her. He followed her out of the room. "She wasn't a hard stick," Dr. House said more than asked.

"She was probably dehydrated or something earlier," said Susan. "Who knows, everybody has good and bad days. About the time you start getting cocky and thinking that you can hit anybody's vein, somebody comes along and humbles you. Perhaps today was just not Dr. Hadley's day."

House didn't say anymore, but he was worried. He'd noticed Thirteen was showing more nerve damage from her Huntington's. This may be the start of her having limitations on what she could and couldn't do as a physician.

Back in the lab, Susan spun down the blood. The serum was clear – no hemolysis. That meant that hemolysis was not a symptom. Susan texted the news to Dr. House and started the chemistry analysis. When she was finished, she took the results to the diagnostics conference room for the team. When she arrived, the only team member there was Dr. Taub. She handed him the results and started back to the lab. Dr. Taub started to follow her. Susan turned around and asked him if he needed anything, he didn't but it was obvious he wanted to say something. Finally, he said that he needed to apologize for his behavior. When she first came, he thought that a lab tech did not belong on House's team, he was wrong. Susan had as much right to be on the team as anybody. As he said this, he put his hand on her arm. Susan ignored the gesture, thanked him and started away, but something in Dr. Taub's demeanor made her hesitate. She looked at him and suddenly she became very uncomfortable. She excused herself and went to the lab.

A couple of hours later, Dr. Hadley stormed into the lab. "What did you say to Dr. House?" she demanded.

"I told him that the hemolysis wasn't a symptom." Susan replied.

"No, what did you say to him about my blood draw?" She clarified.

"Nothing. He watched me do the second draw and came to his own conclusions. I only told him that everybody misses and it's not that big of a deal." Susan said.

"You're not a doctor, you shouldn't even be involved in the differentials, next time you keep your mouth shut." Dr. Hadley exclaimed.

Thirteen's condescending manner angered Susan. She felt her temper starting to rise, "Look," she said, "I don't know why you are so upset; I saw something with the lab results that you guys didn't see. As you are so quick to point out, I'm not a doctor so I don't know if it's important or not, but I think it's in the best interest of the patient that if I see something that I mention it. I'm sorry you're upset, but I'm not going to stop so deal with it."

Dr. House walked in the lab. He'd heard the entire exchange. He wanted to see the microbiological specimen's results again. He told Dr. Hadley to gather the rest of the team. As Susan started to go to his office, he stopped her. He wanted her to stay in the lab and run a confirmation test on the blood she had drawn. As he left the lab, Susan wondered how bad she had screwed up her position on the team. Her temper had gotten her in trouble before and she wasn't looking forward to the repercussions this time.

Susan ran the test Dr. House ordered. The test confirmed his suspicions and they had their answer for the patient. Instead of taking the test results to Dr. House, she sent them to him electronically. She didn't want to go upstairs; she didn't want to face anybody just yet, especially Dr. House. She'd already had issues with two of the doctors and Dr. House had just heard her lose her temper.

No sooner than these thoughts were crossing her mind, Dr. Taub entered the lab. He just wanted to see how she was doing. He'd heard about the exchange she had with Thirteen. He wanted her to know that he supported her position, that she was a very good lab tech etc. Susan had heard enough. "Dr. Taub," she said, "Stop it right now. You have a patient and a job to do, start doing it and quit flirting with me. Go away." Dr. Taub left.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Realization

House was sitting at his piano playing some blues when Cuddy walked in the door. "Hello Sunshine," he said as she leaned over to kiss him. As she leaned over, he stole a look at his two most favorite subjects, Patty and Selma. Seeing what he was looking at, she hit him playfully. She flopped down on the couch and listened to him play. She loved watching him while he played his music, it was as if the music spoke through him. He relaxed completely and enjoyed himself. It was nice to see him relaxed. Finally Cuddy spoke, "How is Susan working out?" House didn't answer for a moment while he finished the piece. "She's got a good head on her shoulders, and she's remarkably good at keeping the fellows in line. She may be a just lab tech in their eyes, but she doesn't take any crap off of any of them" he said. He paused and then said, "It's a pity she didn't go to medical school, she would have made a good doctor."

"I actually asked her that question during her interview," Cuddy offered, "She said that she is not a good people person. She said she can handle them in small doses, but then she gets impatient. She wanted to be in the medical field, so she opted for research and clinical laboratory work so that she wouldn't have to deal with people. She said she operates better alone." House looked toward Cuddy as she told him about the interview, but he wasn't really looking at her. He was lost in thought.

Later that night as they slept together, House dreamed of a little girl bounding in his room carrying a couple of cookies. He awoke and realized what had been nagging at him. He smiled with the realization, brought Cuddy closer to him and gently kissed her. She responded and as they made love, he felt that life was finally coming together for him.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Settling In

The weeks passed. Dr. House's patients came and went; most went home with a diagnosis and a treated condition, occasionally the patient never left the hospital alive. The issues with Drs. Thirteen and Taub were never brought up again. Susan worked diligently each day, if not on the patient of the week, then on House's clinic patients' specimens. She didn't leave the lab often except to participate in differentials, so she didn't have a lot of contact with people outside of Dr. House's team, even Dr. Wilson. Occasionally, Dr. Wilson would bring her a specimen to test for him. She knew he was Dr. House's best friend and he wouldn't mind. Dr. House was however possessive of her when it came to the other doctors in the hospital. She was his lab tech and she was not to run tests for the other physicians, he didn't care what the situation was. He'd come down on her pretty hard when he caught her running tests for Dr. Morrison in hematology.

Each day that went by, Dr. House treated her more like his other employees. This of course meant that he treated her as he treated his doctors; he mocked her, called her an idiot and made inappropriate references to her gender, her blond hair and her stature. As she became more comfortable, she would banter back at Dr. House calling him a narcissist, or make references to his gender, thinning hair or his handicap. The fellows wondered at her ability to insult Dr. House without repercussion and said as much to Dr. Wilson and Dr. Cuddy. All in all everything was going well Susan thought, and then one day it wasn't.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Complications

Dr. House wasn't himself; he was quiet and seemed ill. When she asked if he was Ok, he told her to mind her own business. Later that afternoon, House walked into her lab. He wanted his blood drawn and he wanted certain tests run and he expected her to stay quiet about it. She looked at him and gathered her phlebotomy supplies. Susan drew his blood in three tubes for the tests he requested, a light green top for plasma, a gold top for serum and a lavender top tube for whole blood. She looked deeply at him and while she still had the needle in his arm, she grabbed a yellow top tube and filled that with blood as well. He stared at her while she took his blood, but he didn't say anything. She bandaged his arm and he walked out of the lab. She prepared her chemistry analyzer and the flow cytometer for the tests he requested and began to spin down all but the lavender and yellow top tubes. While she was spinning the tubes down in the centrifuge, she grabbed a phlebotomy kit and a yellow top tube and walked down to the main lab to find a phlebotomist.

Susan finished the testing and didn't like the lab values she saw. Dr. House's liver was failing. She knew that he had been on Vicodin for years for his leg and while he had been off of it for over a year now, and though Ibuprofen was more damaging to the kidneys than the liver, the amount he took to control the pain wasn't helping. She also knew that he had been a heavy drinker in the past and had bordered on alcoholism before he started seeing Dr. Cuddy. She hadn't spoken to him about her past and she didn't know what he knew if anything, but it seemed that now was the time. She went to his office.

Dr. House was alone and sitting at his desk staring off into space. He wasn't fiddling with his cane or tossing Ball-y around. He didn't even have any music playing. She went inside and sat down in the chair opposite his desk. He looked at her as she handed over the results to his lab tests. His face said it all and it was obvious to her that he was scared, but trying hard to hide it. "Do you want me to get Dr. Wilson?" she asked. He shook his head no.

He looked at her and said, "How long have you known?"

She knew what he was talking about. My dad passed away a year and a half ago, he told me on his deathbed. "Do you remember me?" Susan asked

"I remember a little snot-nosed kid running into my room to bug me," he said.

"How long have you known?" Susan asked

"Since I was twelve," he replied.

"Is that why you never kicked me out of your room?" Susan asked.

"I was curious about you," he replied.

Susan started to say something and then she held back. Instead she said, "I remember Dad telling Mom that he was going to go see the Colonel and he'd be back in a while. I was always excited when he said he was going and I went with him as often as I could. I thought it was funny to go to the House house."

Dr. House gave her a look and Susan replied, "Give me a break Greg, I was six." House smiled and Susan continued. "Your dad scared me, but your mom made the best oatmeal cookies around."

"She still does," Dr. House said.

"After I got my cookie, she would give me one for you and I would run upstairs to your room. You were nearly always putting something together or taking it apart. I know I annoyed the heck out of you with my incessant jabbering."

Dr. House smiled with the memory.

"But, then your Dad was re-assigned and I never saw you again," Susan recalled. "When you moved away, Dad started isolating himself as much as possible. He was a minister, so he couldn't isolate himself too far from the general public, but he distanced himself from Mom and me. In his sermons, he always spoke of his greatest sin, but he never mentioned what that sin was. It wasn't until he was on his deathbed that he finally told me of the affair he had with your mother. I asked him if he had ever told Mom and he said he did and that she forgave him. I asked him if this was the greatest sin that he was always talking about in his sermons. He said that it wasn't. I waited for him to continue and he told me that he knew that you were his. He said we went over there under the pretense of visiting your Dad so that he could see you and how you were doing. When your Dad was re-assigned, he lost you. He knew that John was a hard man, but he wasn't sure if John knew about the affair so he left you there. Dad told me that his greatest sin was not the affair that resulted in your conception, but was leaving you with John. He wanted me to tell you that he was sorry for what he did to you and he hoped that you would find it in your heart to forgive him."

Dr. House didn't say anything.

Susan got up out of the chair and started out the door. "Dr. House," she said. "I just found you. I have a brother I never knew I had and I'm not ready to lose you. I've felt alone all my life, even when I was married I was alone. I don't want to be alone anymore." Susan walked out the door and headed to the lab.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11: A Match

Dr. House's liver started failing fast. It wasn't long before he was in critical condition and needed a transplant. It was further complicated by the fact that Dr. House had a rare blood type and being formerly addicted to Vicodin, he was further down on the recipient list. That didn't deter Susan. She was on a mission. When she had pulled his blood to run the tests he wanted, she had taken also yellow top tube for a series of tests he hadn't ordered. She used that blood for tissue typing and she had also tested her own. She and Dr. House were nearly a perfect match. They had the same blood type and matched 5 out of 6 HLAs. It wasn't perfect, but it might be enough. Susan walked into House's outer office where Drs. Foreman, Chase, Taub, Thirteen and Wilson were gathered. Dr. Cuddy was with Dr. House in ICU. Susan announced to the doctors that she wanted to donate part of her liver to Dr. House. The answer was no, but Susan would not be deterred. "Look," she said handing over the tissue typing tests to Dr. Foreman. "We're the same blood type and we have 5 out of 6 matching HLA's. Is that enough?" Dr. Foreman told her that it was, but there was a big size discrepancy. She was too small. "So take the right lobe instead of the left," she said. "I can handle it. I don't drink, I don't smoke and I've never done drugs. With the exception of a little hypertension that is well controlled, I'm perfectly healthy." Finally she convinced them that she was a good candidate and after a thorough work-up, Dr. Chase scheduled the surgery.

The next morning Susan went to Dr. House's room in ICU. He was awake and he looked terrible. He motioned for her to come beside his bed and told her that he didn't want her liver. Susan held his hand, looked into his eyes and asked him if he wanted to die. Of course not, but he didn't want her to risk her life for his. He'd lived his life and done this damage to himself. She was healthy, had a daughter and likely would have grandchildren in the coming years. She didn't need to risk her life for his. Susan bent down and kissed him on the cheek. "Greg," she said, "I love you and I'm not willing to let you die when I have the ability to save your life. I already told you, I just found you and I'm not ready to let you go." House saw that arguing with her wasn't going anywhere, he relented and Susan left to get ready for surgery.

Dr. Cuddy was just outside the door and had witnessed the entire exchange. She couldn't hear what they had said, but she'd seen Susan kiss House and it left her wondering. She had been watching the two of them banter together and grow closer over the last few weeks and was fighting the feelings of jealousy that were beginning to rise up within her. She walked in the room and put the thoughts behind her. She didn't want to mention it to him now just as he was getting ready for surgery, so she decided to wait until everything was over before she confronted him. She held his hand and told him she loved him and she'd be there when he woke up.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Surgery

The surgery took eight hours. In recovery, Susan opened her eyes and saw her daughter standing by her bedside. "You should have told me you were having surgery Mom, I would have been here sooner," Laura said. "I didn't want you to worry," Susan replied. Susan looked into her daughter's blue eyes and told her how pretty she was and that she was glad she was here. Laura told her that she was biased and that it was Thanksgiving break. It's not like there was any place else for her to go. Susan smiled at her daughter's dry sense of humor that seemed to run in the family and drifted off to sleep.

Several hours later, Susan awoke. She asked the nurses for a wheel chair, she wanted to go see Dr. House. The nurses took her to House's room. Cuddy was by his bedside and they were talking. Dr. Cuddy looked over at Susan and excused herself out of the room.

"How are you feeling?" Dr. House said to Susan.

"Like I've been hit by a train, but I'm fine," she replied.

They stayed together and didn't say anything for a while. Finally House said, "Thank you."

"No need to thank me, Greg. I did this for purely selfish reasons," she said as she smiled.

He smiled at her and took her hand.

"I'm glad I found you," she said.

Dr. Cuddy walked back in the room and saw the two of them holding hands. She said, "You love him don't you?"

"Unconditionally," Susan replied, "but there's no reason to get uptight." She paused for a moment and then she continued, "He's my brother." Susan wheeled herself out of his room and left them alone.

As she left the room, she heard Dr. Cuddy say, "Well that explains a lot."


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Conclusion

Two days later, House was moved out of intensive care and into a regular room. Susan, being in better health initially, was nearly recovered enough to be released. Another day and she would go home for a few weeks before she came back to the lab. House was going to have to stay in the hospital a few days longer.

Laura pushed her mother's wheel chair into House's room. Dr. Cuddy was in her office taking care of hospital business and so the three of them were alone.

"Laura," Susan said, "I'd like you to meet your Uncle."

"I have an Uncle? Sweet." Laura replied.

They visited for a short time and then Susan decided it was time to let House rest. As Laura started to push her mother out of the room, Dr. House stopped them and said, "Susan, you're not alone"

"And more importantly, neither are you" was the reply, "Good night Greg."


End file.
